(that is to say, to itself) makes it obligatory to pursue its interests
even at the expense of the most sacred affections. The Pagan, the Jew,
the Moslem could not have been brought to yield assent to this doctrine,
but it meets us continually in Catholic hagiology; for instance, St.
François de Sales told Madame de Chantal that she ought, if needful, to
walk into the cloister over the dead body of her son. So in a Jaina
story, father, mother, wife, child, sister, brother try in vain to wrest
a holy young man from his resolve to leave them. In vain the old people
say: “We will do all the work if you will only come home; come, child!
We will pay your debts; you need not stay longer than you like—only come
home!” The quite admirable young man (who sets one furiously wishing for
a stout birch rod) proceeds on his way unmoved. But it is remarked, “At
such appeals the weak break down like old, worn-out oxen going up hill.”
We prefer the weak.
Who was the first anchorite? Perhaps in very early states of society a
few individuals got lost in the mountain or forest, where they lived on
fruits and nuts, and then, after a long time, some of them were
re-discovered, and, because they seemed so strange and mysterious after
their long seclusion, they were credited with supernatural gifts.
Animals do not go away alone except in the rare case of being seized
with mania, or in the universal case of feeling the approach of death.
The origin of hermits cannot, therefore, be explained by analogy with
animals.
One can conceive that a hermit’s life may have great attractions, but
scarcely that of a Jaina hermit, who is expected to employ his leisure
in the most painful mortification of the flesh. Though other-worldly
advantages form the great object which spurs men to choose such a lot we
must not forget that this sort of life is held to confer powers which
are, by no means, other-worldly. By it the Brahman becomes superior to
caste, being incapable of pollution: if he wished he could drink after
the most miserable Western had touched the cup.
The theory of asceticism is very much alike everywhere, and the
extraordinary faculties claimed by the Jainas for their holy men are the
portion, more or less, of the Indian holy man in general. These
faculties may be briefly described as an abnormal development of the
subliminal self, but that is not an adequate account of the vastness of
their range. One feels often inclined to ask—without granting revelation
or, indeed, the existence of an omniscient being who could give it—_how_
does the Buddhist or Jaina acquire perfect certainty that he knows all
about his own and man’s destiny? The question of authority is of primary
importance in all religions: in what way does Buddhist or Jaina solve
it? It is evident that scepticism based on this very ground does
sometimes harass the soul of the Jaina novice: “The weak,” we are told,
“when bitten by a snarling dog or annoyed by flies and gnats, will begin
to say: ‘_I have not seen the next world, all may end with death._’” It
startles one to hear from the mouth of the devil’s advocate in an
ancient Eastern homily a cry so modern, so Western:—
“Death means heaven, he longs to receive it,
But what shall I do if I don’t believe it?”[5]
Footnote 5:
“Verses written in India,” p. 13.
Sir Alfred Lyall’s questioner found none to answer him, but the Jaina
has an answer which, if accepted, must prove entirely satisfactory. The
superlatively virtuous individual possesses an effortless certainty
about the secrets of life. In a state superinduced by means which,
though arduous, are at the disposal of all, the soul can view itself,
read its history, past, present and to come, know the souls of others,
remember what happened in former births, understand the heavenly bodies
and the universe. Here is nothing miraculous: a veil is lifted, and
hidden things become plain. It is as if a man who had cataract in both
eyes underwent a successful operation—after which he sees.
The supersensual perception of Jaina, or Joghi, or Guru is much akin to
the “infused knowledge” ascribed to the saints of the Thebaid. He
knows—because he knows. By the devout, information derived from these
persons is accepted as readily as we should accept information about
radium from a qualified scientific man. The most confident of all that
the information is true is he who gives it: fraud must be dismissed
finally as the key to any such phenomena.
The Indian mind has grasped a great idea in referring what we call
spirit to fixed laws no less than what we call matter. But in spirit it
sees a force infinitely exceeding the force of matter. “The holy monk,”
say the Jaina scriptures, “might reduce millions to ashes by the fire of
his wrath.” Besides such tremendous powers as these he has all the minor
accomplishments of the spiritualist or hypnotist: thought-reading,
levitation, clairvoyance, &c., and he can always tame wild beasts. He is
under strict obligations to use his powers with discretion. It is not
right to make profit out of them: that man is anathema who lives by
divination from dreams, diagrams, sticks, bodily changes, the cries of
animals. The Jainas denounce magic not less strongly than the other
religious teachers of the East. This is interesting because the reasons
are lacking which are commonly held to explain the world-wide prejudice
against magic: the Jainas do not attribute it to the agency of evil
spirits, nor can their dislike of it be attributed to the professional
jealousy of priests in regard to rival thaumaturgists. For the Jaina the
power of magic-working lies in every one, and those who have developed
their other spiritual powers have also this one at their command, but to
avail themselves of it is an enormous sin. There is a weird story
showing what infamies a magic-working “ascetic” may perpetrate. A monk
carried off, by magical arts, all the women he met, till the king of
that country trapped him in a hollow tree and had him put to death. The
women were set free and returned to their husbands, except one, who
refused to go back because she had fallen desperately in love with her
seducer. A very wise man suggested that the monk’s bones should be
pounded and mixed with milk, and then given to the woman to drink: this
was done and she was cured of her passion.
Over the whole East, the report that some one was working miracles, even
the most beneficent, raised both suspicion and jealousy. This was why
secrecy was recommended about all such acts.
How far the belief in the extraordinary gifts of the ascetic rests on
hallucination, and how far men in an artificially created abnormal
condition can do things of which hypnotic manifestations are but the
outer edge, it is not my purpose to inquire. The Jaina monks are said
sometimes to fast for four days, and no doubt the stimulus of starvation
(especially when the brain has not been weakened by long disease),
produces an ecstatic state which men have everywhere supposed to
indicate religious perfection. This may be observed even in birds, which
from some difficulty in swallowing, die of starvation: I had a canary
that sang for days before it died a sweet incessant song, the like of
which I never heard: it seemed not earthly.
The best side in Eastern religions is not their thaumaturgy but the
steady ethical tendency which pushes itself up out of the jungle of
extravagance and self-delusion. Though we may not have much sympathy
with the profession of a “houseless” saint, it is impossible to deny the
moral elevation of such a picture of him as is drawn in the Jaina
conversion story of “The True Sacrifice.” A holy man, born in the
highest Brahmanical caste, but who had found wisdom in Jaina vows, went
on a long journey and walked and walked till he came to Benares, where
he found a very learned Brahman who was deeply versed in astronomy and
in the Vedas. When the “Houseless” arrived, the priest was about to
offer up sacrifice, and perhaps because he did not wish to be disturbed
at such a moment, he told him rudely to go away—he would have no beggars
there. The holy man was not angry; he had not come to extort food or
water, but from the pure desire to save souls. He quietly told the
priest that he was ignorant of the essence of the Vedas, of the true
meaning of sacrifice, of the government of the heavenly bodies. There
must have been a peculiar effluence of sanctity flowing from the
“Houseless” as the priest took his rebukes with meekness, and merely
asked for enlightenment. Then the seer delivered his message. It is not
the tonsure that makes the priest or repetition of the sacred syllable
_om_ that makes the saint. It is not by dwelling in woods or by wearing
clothes of bark or grass that salvation may be reached. Equanimity,
chastity, knowledge, and penance are the ways to holiness. His actions
alone colour a man’s soul: as his works are, so is he. Persuaded of the
truth, the priest addressed the “Houseless” as the truest of
sacrificers, the most learned of all who know the Vedas, the inspired
exponent of Brahmanhood, and begged him to accept his alms. But the
mendicant refused: he only conjured the priest out of pity for his own
soul to join the order of the “Houseless.” After having been rightly
schooled in Jaina precepts, the Brahman followed his advice, and in due
time he became a very great saint like his instructor.
As the Jaina scriptures are in effect a manual of discipline for monks,
it is natural that they should be severe on womankind. Not that a
woman’s soul is worth less than a man’s or, rather, since spirit is
sexless, the distinction does not exist. A woman may be as good a saint
as a man; a nun may be as meritorious as a monk. The identity of
mysticism independent of creed was never more apparent than in the
beautiful saying of a Jaina nun: “As a bird dislikes the cage, so do I
dislike the world,” which might have been uttered by any of the
self-consumed spirits of the Latin Church from St. Teresa downwards. I
have never come across an allusion to being born again as a woman as a
punishment. But though the fullest potentiality of merit is allowed to
woman in the abstract, the Eternal Feminine is looked upon in the
concrete as man’s worst snare. “Women are the greatest temptation in the
world.” The Jaina books are Counsels of Perfection and not a Decalogue
framed for common humanity: they give one the idea of being intended for
preternaturally good people, and never more so than in the manner in
which they treat the dreadful snares and temptations for which women are
answerable: instead of a Venusberg, we are shown—the domestic hearth!
The story in question might be called “The Woes of the Model Husband!” A
girl who vowed that she would do anything rather than be parted from the
dear object of her affections, has no sooner settled the matter once for
all by marriage than she begins to scold and trample on the poor man’s
head. Her spouse is sent on a thousand errands, not one moment can he
call his own. Countless are the lady’s wants and her commands keep pace
with them: “Do look for the bodkin; go and get some fruit; bring wood to
cook the vegetables; why don’t you come and rub my back instead of
standing there doing nothing? Are my clothes all right? Where is the
scent-bottle? I want the hair-dresser. Where is my basket to put my
things in? And my trinkets? There, I want my shoes and my umbrella.
Bring me my comb and the ribbon to tie up my hair. Get the looking-glass
and a tooth-brush. I must have a needle and thread. You really ought to
look after the stores, the rainy season will be here in no time.” These
and many more are the young wife’s behests, the appalling list of which
might well intimidate those about to marry, but there is worse to come.
When “the joy of their lives, the crown of their wedded bliss” arrives
in the shape of a baby, it is the unfortunate husband who is set to mind
it: he has to get up in the night to sing lullabies to it “just as if he
were a nurserymaid,” and ashamed though he is of such a humiliation, he
is actually put to wash the baby-linen! “All this has been done by many
men who for the sake of pleasure have stooped so low; they become the
equals of slaves, animals, beasts of burden, _mere nobodies_.” Would not
most readers take this for a quotation from one of Ibsen’s plays rather
than from a sacred volume which was composed a considerable time before
the beginning of our era?
The Indian pessimist is withheld from suicide by the dread of a worse
existence beyond the pyre. He is the coward of conscience to a much
greater extent than the weary Occidental, because his sense of the
unseen is so much stronger. In the Jaina system, however, suicide is
permitted under certain circumstances. After twelve years of rigorous
penance a man is allowed the supreme favour of “a religious death”—in
other words, he may commit suicide by starvation. This is called Itvara.
The civilised Indian does not seem to have the power of dying when he
pleases without the assistance of starvation which is possessed by some
of the higher savage races.
The soul may be re-born in any earthly form from the lowest to the
highest, but there are other possibilities before it when it leaves its
mortal coil. Those who are very bad, too bad to disgrace the earth
again—above all, the cruel—are consigned to an _Inferno_ more awful than
Dante’s, though not without points of striking resemblance to it. The
very good who abounded in charity and in truth, but who yet lived in the
world the life of the world, become gods, glorified beings enjoying a
great measure of happiness and power, but not eternal. Far beyond the
joys of this heaven, which are still thinkable, is the unthinkable bliss
of the Perfect, of the Conquerors, of the Changeless. The human mind
could not adjust the idea of evolution more scientifically to the soul’s
destiny.
It is unnecessary to say that the number who become even gods is very
small. A great deal is achieved if a man is simply born again as a man,
for though Jaina and Buddhist thinks that man’s lot is wretched (or, at
least that it ought to be when we consider its inherent evils), yet it
must be distinctly remembered that he thinks the life of beasts far more
wretched. Leopardi’s “Song of the Nomadic Shepherd in Asia,” in which he
makes the world-weary shepherd envy the fate of his sheep, is steeped in
Western not in Eastern pessimism: only in the last lines, which really
contradict the rest, we find the true Eastern note:—
“Perchance in every form
That Nature may on everything bestow
The day of birth brings everlasting woe.”
The Indian seems never to be struck by what to us seems (perhaps in
error, but I hope not) the inconscient joy of creatures, nor yet that of
children. He is constantly sure that all creation groaneth and
travaileth. Nothing is young in Asia, all is very old. Every one is
tired. In our minds thoughtless joy is connected with innocency, and in
these Indian creeds there is no innocency as there is no effortless
All-Good. Perfection is the result of labour. No other religious teacher
spoke of little children as Christ did—Christ, whose incomprehensible
followers were one day to consign the larger part of them, as a favour,
“to the easiest room in hell.” Ardently as children are desired and
lovingly as they are treated in the East, something essential to the
charm of childhood eludes the Oriental perception of it.
In the sacred books of those Indian communities which concern themselves
most about animals, they are very rarely shown in an attractive light.
The horse, almost alone, is spoken of with genuine admiration; for
instance, there is this simile: “As the trained Kambôga steed whom no
noise frightens, exceeds all other horses in speed, so a very learned
monk is superior to all others.” An elephant is extolled for having
knelt down before a holy recluse though only newly tamed, and we hear
that Mahavira’s words were understood by all animals. Folk-lore tells
much that scriptures do not tell, and if we had a collection of Jaina
folk-lore we should find, no doubt, records of charming friendships
between beasts and saints, but in the Jaina sacred books pity, not love,
is the feeling shown towards animals.
[Illustration:
BUDDHA PACIFYING AN INTOXICATED ELEPHANT.
India Museum.]
As a rule, Indian philosophical writers shirk the question of how far
the soul which was and may be again a man’s retains its consciousness
during its residence in lower forms. Probably the answer, were it given,
would be: “Not very far,” but the higher animals are credited with a
fuller share of reflection than in the West. Hence it is preferable to
assume the shape of one of the higher than of one of the lower
organisms, but still it is far better to be re-born as the lowest of men
than as the highest of animals.
If it is something to be re-born as a man at all, it is a great deal to
be re-born as a fortunate man, healthy, wealthy, and surrounded by
troops of friends: at least, to the simple-minded such a prospect must
appear to hold out a very splendid hope. It is remarkable what good care
the framers of the intensely ascetic Jaina faith took of people who
could not pretend to walk in the path of the elect. The mere
“householder” (so called to distinguish him from the more admirable
“Houseless”) has the promise of an ample recompense if he is only
truthful, and humane, and liberal in alms-giving and temple-building. He
may win very great promotion on earth or even a place in the Jaina
heaven, the abode of light, where happy beings live long and enjoy great
power and energy, and never grow old. Such a state agrees with the
logical evolution of a virtuous but still this-worldly man. Could he
aspire sincerely to a more spiritual state, and can the soul outsoar its
own aspirations? The Jaina heaven is not eternal, but does every one
wish for eternity? Most people wish for ten or fifteen years of
tolerable freedom from care on this side of the grave. If they knew for
certain that they were going to enjoy one thousand years of heaven, they
would not think much of what would happen at the end of that time.
There remain the pure and separated spirits who in this present life
have climbed beyond the plane of mortality. They are in the world, not
of it, and they, indeed, “have a glimpse of incomprehensibles and
thoughts of things which thoughts but tenderly touch.” For these, the
Jaina, like the Buddhist, keeps Nirvana.
The extreme reticence of Buddha and even of Buddhist commentators on the
inner significance of this word—meaning literally “liberation”—is not
observed by the Jainas, though it must not be inferred that there was
any doctrinal difference of it in the view taken by the two sects. The
Jainas show a great anxiety to tell what Nirvana is; if they fail it is
because it baffles all description. They repudiate the idea that it
signified annihilation, but admit that the subject oversteps the bounds
of the thinkable. “The liberated soul perceives and knows, but there is
no analogy by which to describe it—without body, re-birth, sex,
dimensions.” We think of the wonderful lines in the _Helena_ of
Euripides:—
“... the mind
Of the dead lives not, but immortal sense
When to immortal ether gone, possesses;”
lines which, like not a few others in Euripides, seem to reflect a light
not cast from Grecian skies.
Like every stage in the history of the life-soul (_giva_) Nirvana is
governed by an immutable law of evolution. When all the dross is
eliminated only pure spirit is left: a distilled essence not only
indestructible, for spirit is always indestructible, but also
changeless. All the rest dies, which means that it changes, that it is
re-born: this part can die no more, and hence can be born no more. It
has gained the liberty of which the soul goes seeking in the Dantesque
sense. It has gained safety, rest, peace.
How familiar the words sound! Here am I in Asia, and I could dream
myself back under the roof of the village church where generations of
simple folk had sought a rest-cure for their minds: where I, too, first
listened to those words _safety_, _rest_, _peace_, with the strange
home-sickness they awaken in young children or in the very old who have
preserved their childhood’s faith. There are words that, by collecting
round them inarticulate longings and indefinite associations, finally
leave the order of language and enter that of music; they evoke an
emotion, not an idea. The emotions which sway the human heart are few,
and they are very much alike. The self-same word-music transports the
English child to the happy land, far, far away, and the Indian mystic to
Nirvana.
Almost everything which the Jainas say of Nirvana might have been said
by any follower of any spiritual religion who attempted to suggest a
place of final beatitude. “There is a safe place in view of all, but
hard to approach, where there is no old age, nor death, nor pain, nor
disease. This place which is in view of all is called Nirvana or freedom
from pain, or it is called perfection; it is the safe, happy, quiet
place. It is the eternal haven which is in view of all, but is difficult
to approach.”
Nirvana is the getting-well of the soul. “He will put away all the
misery which always afflicts mankind; as it were, _recovered from a long
illness_, he becomes infinitely happy and obtains the final aim.”
We are told that the Buddhas that were and the Buddhas that will be,
have peace for their foundation, even as all things have the earth for
their foundation. (The term Buddha, or “Enlightened,” is used by Jainas
as well as by Buddhists for super-excellent beings.)
Nirvana may or rather must be possessed before the death of the visible
body: it must be obtained by the living if it is to be enjoyed by the
dead. Detachment from the world, self-denial, selflessness, help the
soul on its way, but the two moral qualities which are absolutely
essential are kindness and veracity. Ruth and truth are written over the
portals of eternity. “He should cease to injure living things whether
they move or not, on high, below or on earth, for this has been called
Nirvana, which consists in peace.” “A sage setting out for Nirvana
should not speak untruth: this rule comprises Nirvana and the whole of
carefulness.”
If a novice does anything wrong, he should never deny it: if he has not
done it he should say, “I have not done it.” A lie must never be
told—“not even in jest or in anger.” Were there nothing else of good in
Jaina discipline this devotion to truth would place it high on mankind’s
mountain.
[Illustration:
_Photo in_ _India Museum._
COLOSSAL RECLINING BULL
(_Southern India._)]
The law of _Ahimsa_, “non-killing,” which stands at the head of the
precepts of both Buddhist and Jaina, is not only far more rigidly
observed by the Jaina, but also invested by him with a greater positive
as well as relative value. One might say that with the Buddhists it is
more a philosophic deduction, with the Jainas more a moral necessity.
The position of Buddhists in this matter of _Ahimsa_ is one of
compromise. There never was a Buddhist who did not think cruelty to
animals an abominable sin, there is no compromise on that point, but, in
respect to animal food, the usual Buddhist layman is not really more
strict than any very humane person in the West; he abjures sport, he
will not kill animals himself, but he does not refuse to eat meat if it
is set before him. The Buddhists declare that the Lord Buddha was prayed
to forbid animal food absolutely, but he would not. It is argued that in
the flesh itself, when the life is gone from it, there is nothing
particularly sacred: therefore it is permissible to sustain life on it.
Your servants may buy meat ready for sale in the market: it would be
there just the same if you did not send to buy it, but you ought not to
tell them to give an order for some sort of meat which is not on sale;
still less should you incite people to snare or shoot wild animals for
your table. The Buddhists of to-day say with the opponents to
vegetarianism in Europe, that total abstention from the flesh of animals
would lead to the disappearance of the chief part of them; though it
might be answered that sheep would still be wanted for their wool, goats
and cows for their milk, oxen for ploughing. But a harder question is,
What would happen to these animals when they grew old? The Jainas seek
to settle this crux by building hospitals for them, but the result has
been indifferently encouraging.